Government makes pledge to POWs

November 04, 2005

The Federal Government has promised to make changes to the prisoner of war memorial at Hellfire Pass in Thailand following complaints from former POWs.

Veterans Affairs Department secretary Mark Sullivan, who was to accompany veterans to Hellfire Pass next week, said it was clear there had not been adequate consultation about the memorial redevelopment.

"There was some consultation with veterans about two or three years ago in respect to concepts," he said on ABC radio.

"Some people thought that was consultation. I don't agree with it. The work proceeded without proper consultation.

"The commitment I have given them is that we will fix any issue."

Veterans have objected to the removal of rails and sleepers which marked the final resting place of some of the ashes of prisoner doctor Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop who died in 1993.

They also have objected to a memorial plaque which says Australian POWs were there in 1942-43.

Hellfire Pass was a cutting on the notorious Burma Railway where allied prisoners were forced by their Japanese captors to work up to 18-hour shifts using hand tools to chip through solid rock.

Overwork, disease, malnutrition and brutality cost the lives of as many as 700 Australians and others on just this one section of the railway on which thousands of POWs died.

The Hellfire Pass Museum was officially opened in 1998 and the latest upgrade completed in April.

The Hellfire visit on Remembrance Day next Friday was to be the last in a series of veteran pilgrimages marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war.

Mr Sullivan said that was the main purpose.

"The secondary purpose is so that I can talk with the executive of the POW Association," he said.

"This is really an effort to say to the POWs these are the issues we face and they understand them well. What do we need to ensure is that this is a place that is for the POWs.

"This is a place of extraordinary significance and nothing the department has done will spoil that."

"At one level Hellfire Pass has become in terms of outside of Australia almost the icon place other than Gallipoli."

Mr Sullivan said the period 1942-43 was when the main construction was performed but there was no doubt Australian POWs were involved on the railway right through to the end of the war.

He said he had no problem with changing the date to 1945 and the process to do that had already started.

Mr Sullivan said the railway lines removed by the Veterans Affairs Department were laid in 1989 and most likely came from a siding of the main line.

They posed a significant hazard for the several thousand people who attend Anzac Day events there each year, he said.

"It was absolutely inappropriate to have pulled up the rails without proper consultation," he said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html

Any news on what the proposed changes are likely to be?

The argument over the railway lines being "a significant hazard" are weak... as anyone who visted the site prior to their removal would testify.